of a model school in
mind. When Peter Cooper bought the first lot there in Eighteen Hundred
Thirty-six, the site was at the extreme north limit of the city. Later,
A. T. Stewart was to build his business palace near at hand.

Cooper offered his block of land to the city, gratis, provided a school
would be built according to his plans. His offer was smilingly
pigeonholed.

In Eighteen Hundred Fifty-four, when Peter Cooper was sixty-one years
old, he began the building of his model school on his own account.

His business affairs had prospered, and besides the glue-factory he was
making railroad-iron at Ringwood, New Jersey, and Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania. These mills were very crude according to our present-day
standards. But Peter Cooper believed the consumption of iron would
increase. Bridges were then built almost entirely of wood. Peter Cooper
built his bridges of rolled iron "boards," as they were first called,
riveted together. But he found it difficult to compete with the wooden
structures.

When he began building Cooper Union, he found himself with a big stock
of bridge-iron on hand for which there was no market. The excavations
were already made for the foundations, when the idea came to Peter
Cooper that he could utilize this bridge-iron in his school-building and
thus get an absolutely fireproof structure. The ability of Peter Cooper
to adapt himself to new conditions, turning failure into success, is
here well illustrated.

Not until he had accumulated an overstock of bridge-iron did he think of
using iron for the frames of buildings. It was the first structural use
of iron to re-enforce stone and brick, in America.

Cooper Union was nearly five years in building. A financial panic had
set in, and business was at a stand-still. But Peter did not cheapen his
plan, and the idea of abandoning it never occurred to him.

The land and the building cost him six hundred thirty thousand dollars
and came near throwing him into bankruptcy. But business revived and he
pulled through, to the loss of reputation of many good men who had
persistently prophesied failure. Be it said to the credit of his family
that the household, too, partook of the dream and lent their aid.

Altogether, the assets of Cooper Union are now above two million
dollars.

The ideal man in the mind of Peter Cooper was Benjamin Franklin. He
wanted to help the apprentice--the poor boy. He saw many young men
dissipating their energies at saloon